1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable telephone having a phone-book capability of registering image information, and, more particularly, to a technique of searching information registered in a phone book and displaying the search result.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typical portable telephones have a phone-book capability, which registers predetermined names, telephone numbers, and other personal information, and quickly reads a series of information as needed. This phone-book capability can allow a user to make a telephone call without searching another medium, such as a printed phone directory or an address book. When a call arrives, it is possible to compare the caller number informed by the caller with the data registered in the portable telephone and display the corresponding name so that the user can know who the caller is before answering the call.
Recently portable video telephones have been proposed which are capable of handling image information. This type of portable video telephone transmits or receives voices and images simultaneously, so that the caller and receiver can talk to each other while viewing the images sent from the opposite parties. Further, this portable video telephone can record an image received while talking or record an image that is taken by a camera incorporated into the video telephone.
Such a portable video telephone can also handle stored image information as information attached to the registered data in the phone book. At the time the phone book is searched for personal information, this capability can permit the user to conduct a search while viewing image information. When a call comes, this capability can display image information together with name information, helping the user understand immediately who the caller is.
There are several ways to retrieve necessary information using the phone-book capability. They include a scheme of allowing a caller to input information (a name or address) associated with a receiver and then retrieving necessary information based on the input information, and a scheme of retrieving necessary information while allowing a user to confirm registered data piece by piece. According to either scheme, when the displayed retrieval result is not the intended one, the intended data is searched by scrolling the displayed information up and down by operating, for example, scroll keys.
At this time, the phone-book capability of this portable video telephone displays attached image information in addition to character information, such as names and telephone numbers. As image information contains a large amount of data, the data quantity is reduced before storage by subjecting the image information to coding such as the one specified by JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). This requires that image information be decoded before it is displayed. The time needed for decoding and displaying an image is longer than the time needed for displaying character information.
As image decoding involves a great deal of work, there is some time delay in displaying the next image. This prevents the user from proceeding to the next search or disables a spontaneous response to the next key operation during the period from the point of the previous search operation to the display of an associated image, thus resulting in a lower operability.
Further, there is a time lag from the display of character information to the display of an associated image. Unless some update control is carried out to maintain the association of character information and image information to be displayed, therefore, the image that has been generated by the immediately previous operation and character information resulting from the current search may be displayed simultaneously, resulting in the mismatching of characters and an image. When character information is displayed after being updated, therefore, it is necessary to erase the image that has been displayed before the update.
Conventionally, when registered data contained an image, a black screen or the like was displayed, as in the case where registered data would contain no image, until the image would be displayed after the display of character information. As the display screen was imageless, such as a black screen, for a while after the display of character information, the user could not determine whether an image corresponding to the displayed character information would be displayed or there was no image corresponding to this character information.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a portable telephone which overcomes the aforementioned shortcomings of the prior art and has an improved operability and faster response speed while conducting a continuous search.
To achieve the above object, according to the first aspect of this invention, there is provided a portable telephone having a phone-book capability of selecting and displaying receiver information (addressee information) having character information and image information registered therein in association with each other, wherein at the time different pieces of receiver information from currently-displayed receiver information are selected and displayed in order, those pieces of character information which are included in the selected pieces of receiver information are sequentially displayed in association with the selected pieces of receiver information and only that image information which corresponds to the last-selected receiver information is displayed.
As this portable telephone performs a display process only on the image information that corresponds to the receiver information which has been acquired last in a continuous search of receiver information including image information, it is possible to improve the operability and response speed at the time of conducting a continuous search.
In this case, at the time of selecting and displaying receiver information different from currently-displayed receiver information, image information which does not depend on receiver information may be displayed until that image information which is included in the selected receiver information is displayed.
Alternatively, at the time of selecting and displaying receiver information different from currently-displayed receiver information, a screen for displaying image information may be turned off or darkened until that image information which corresponds to the selected receiver information is displayed.
According to the second aspect of this invention, there is provided a portable telephone which comprises phone-book memory means for registering plural pieces of receiver information including character information and image information associated with each other; decoding means for decoding the image information stored in the phone-book memory means; display means for displaying the character information and the image information stored in the phone-book memory means; operation means for outputting a select signal in accordance with an external operation; and control means for controlling the phone-book memory means, the decoding means, the display means, and the operation means, and performing such control that when a plurality of select signals for selecting different pieces of receiver information from that receiver information which is currently displayed on the display means are output from the operation means continuously or over a given period of time, these character information which is included in the selected pieces of receiver information are sequentially displayed on the display means in accordance with the select signals and only that image information which corresponds to a last select signal output is decoded by the decoding means and is displayed on the display means.
In this case, when a plurality of select signals for selecting different pieces of receiver information from that receiver information which is currently displayed on the display means is output from the operation means, the control means may perform such control as to display image information which does not depend on receiver information on the display means until that image information which corresponds to a last select signal output from the operation means is decoded by the decoding means and is displayed on the display means.
In the portable telephone according to the second aspect of this invention, the display means may have an area for displaying character information and an area for displaying image information, and when a plurality of select signals for selecting different pieces of receiver information from that receiver information which is currently displayed on the display means are output from the operation means, the control means may perform such control as to turn off or darken the area of the display means for display image information until that image information which corresponds to a last select signal output from the operation means is decoded by the decoding means and is displayed on the display means.
In the portable telephone according to the second aspect of this invention, when image information in that receiver information which is currently displayed on the display means does not coincide with image information in that receiver information which corresponds to a select signal output from the operation means, the decoding means may decode the latter image information.
According to the third aspect of this invention, there is provided a portable telephone which has a phone-book capability of storing plural pieces of character information, such as names and telephone numbers, and image information associated with the character information and searching the storage contents, and comprises operation means for inputting an operation instruction for searching a phone book; measuring means for measuring an input interval between inputs made through the operation means; and control means for controlling a time for starting the decoding of image information in accordance with the input interval of the operation means.
As this portable telephone varies the delay time till the beginning of an image decoding process based on the key-signal input interval, it is possible to reduce the frequency of the process of stopping the image decoding process, thus reducing the load on the search process and ensuring a smoother operability.
According to the fourth aspect of this invention, there is provided a portable telephone which has a phone-book capability of storing plural pieces of character information, such as names and telephone numbers, and image information associated with the character information and searching the storage contents, and comprises operation means having an operation key or a plurality of buttons; image decoding means for performing a decoding process on the image information stored in a coded form; and control means for performing a general control of the portable telephone and starting the decoding process on that image information which corresponds to a current search result when detecting that the operation of the operation means is released (release signal) while the phone-book capability is used in a search.
With this structure, because the image decoding/displaying process is started based on the release signal from the operation means, it is possible to omit a process of decoding unnecessary images at the time of using the phone-book capability in a search and the process of stopping this decoding process, and to perform decoding only on the image information that corresponds to whatever information is selected by a user. This can stabilize the search speed and ensure a smoother operability.
This portable telephone of the fourth aspect may further comprise a timer for measuring a predetermined time, whereby when detecting that the operation of the operation means is released, the control means may perform such control as to start the decoding process on that image information which corresponds to the search result after the timer measures the predetermined time.
In this case, as image decoding is stopped until the predetermined time specified by the time since the outputting of the release signal, it is possible to spontaneously respond to a re-manipulation of the operation means for a search operation.
According to the fifth aspect of this invention, there is provided a portable telephone which comprises phone-book memory means for registering plural pieces of receiver information including character information and image information associated with each other; display means for displaying the character information and the image information stored in the phone-book memory means; operation means for outputting a select signal in accordance with an external operation; detection means for detecting if image information corresponding to that receiver information which has been selected by an operation of the operation means is registered; and control means for outputting a display to the effect that the image information corresponding to the selected receiver information is not registered to the display means when the detection means outputs information indicating that the image information corresponding to the selected receiver information is not registered.
According to this portable telephone, because the display of character information acquired as a result of a search is made to vary depending on whether or not an image is included in the registered data acquired as the search result, it is possible to determine if an image is included in the retrieved registered data. This allows the user to avoid waiting unnecessarily for an image to be displayed when no image is present in the retrieved registered data, thus improving the operability of the phone book in the portable telephone.
According to the sixth aspect of this invention, there is provided a portable telephone which comprises phone-book memory means for registering plural pieces of receiver information including character information and image information associated with each other; display means for displaying the character information and the image information; operation means for outputting a select signal in accordance with an external operation; detection means for detecting if image information corresponding to that receiver information which has been selected by an operation of the operation means is registered; display-information memory means for storing display information indicating that the image information corresponding to the selected receiver information is not registered and display information indicating that the image information corresponding to the selected receiver information is registered; and control means for selecting a display content to be output from the display-information memory means based on an output of the detection means and displaying the selected display content on the display means.
In this case, the control means may perform such control as to output the display information indicating that the image information corresponding to the selected receiver information is registered to the display means before the image information corresponding to the selected receiver information is output to the display means.
According to the portable telephone of the fifth aspect or sixth aspect of this invention, at least one of the display information indicating that the image information corresponding to the selected receiver information is not registered and the display information indicating that the image information corresponding to the selected receiver information is registered may be character information.
According to the portable telephone of the fifth aspect or sixth aspect of this invention, the phone-book memory means may be storing index information about how the receiver information and the image information are registered, and based on the index information, the detection means may detect if image information is registered in the receiver information selected by the operation of the operation means.
In this case, it is possible to easily detect whether a registered image is standing by for the display process after a search operation or there is no registered image available as a search result and the display process has been finished.